Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Written by Jon Williams

Early in 2014, HBO continued its string of buzzworthy hit
shows with the original series True
Detective. The first
season of the show featured Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as the
detectives in question, and its eight episodes followed their 17-year hunt for
a serial killer in southern Louisiana. The series was received well by
audiences and critics alike, garnering ten Emmy nominations and five wins,
including Outstanding Casting.

That outstanding casting is on display once again as the
stars for Season 2 have been confirmed. As an anthology series, each individual
season will tell an entirely new story, and so McConaughey and Harrelson will
not return in their roles. Instead, a completely different cast of characters
will focus on another case, set this time somewhere in California.

One of the early casting announcements, and one that raised
some eyebrows, was Vince
Vaughn as a criminal kingpin. Vaughn, of course, is known primarily for
screwball comedies like Wedding
Crashers and Dodgeball,
which are at odds with True Detective’s
dark, gritty tone. Despite this perception, he’s no stranger to dramatic (and
often dark) roles, having starred in such films as Clay
Pigeons and Domestic
Disturbance—not to mention his portrayal of one of the most iconic
villains of all time, Norman Bates, in the 1998 remake of Psycho.

Playing Vaughn’s character’s wife in True Detective will be Kelly
Reilly, who was just confirmed earlier this week. This English actress has
had quite a variety of roles in a career that dates back to the mid-1990s. Most
prominent among them might be as Mary Morstan, paramour of Dr. John Watson in Guy
Ritchie’s Sherlock
Holmes and its 2011
sequel. She also starred as detective Anna Travis in three seasons of the
British television Above
Suspicion, and has been seen recently in films like Cavalry
and Heaven
Is for Real.

Another early announcement, confirmed in September at the
same time as Vaughn, was Colin
Farrell. Farrell will play one of the cops, but one that also owes
allegiance to Vaughn’s criminal mastermind. First and foremost a movie star,
Farrell actually got his start in television, appearing in Series
4 and 5
of the BBC’s Ballykissangel. Shortly
thereafter he made his way to Hollywood with roles in films like Hart’s
War with Bruce Willis and Minority
Report with Tom Cruise. He’s been involved in several high-profile
remakes, including Miami
Vice, Fright
Night, and Total
Recall, and he won a Golden Globe for In
Bruges.

Playing another troubled cop will be Taylor
Kitsch, who burst onto the scene playing Tim Riggins, the much-loved high
school football player at the heart of the Friday
Night Lights TV series. From there he jumped into effects-laden
blockbusters, starring in Disney’s adaptation of John
Carter and as part of the Battleship
group. Toning down the bombast, he recently appeared in another HBO production,
the critically acclaimed drama The
Normal Heart, whose ensemble cast drew rave reviews across the board.

And finally we come to the last member of True Detective’s main cast for Season 2.
Rachel
McAdams, like Reilly and Kitsch, was just confirmed this week, signing up
to play a straight-laced detective (some descriptions list her character as a
sheriff) in charge of the investigation. Also like Reilly, McAdams is an alumna
of Sherlock Holmes, although she is
probably most recognized for earlier roles in Mean
Girls and The
Notebook. McAdams has a bit of television background, with a role in
the Canadian series Slings
& Arrows among her first acting jobs.

With a cast like this, it’s easy to assume that the second
season of True Detective will be just
as big a hit as the first. Make sure you have that first season on your shelves
for patrons who may have missed it on TV, and don’t forget all these other
great movies and TV shows from these talented actors.

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